202: Death Penalty Cases

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Wanda Lopez was a little freaked out. She was working the evening shift, alone, at a gas station in a rough part of town, and a sketchy dude was outside the store with a knife. She called the police, but they brushed off her concerns. The guy hadn’t done anything! He wasn’t even inside the store! But the man’s presence set off Wanda’s alarm bells. So she called 911 again. The dispatcher didn’t like Wanda’s tone (!!) but sent officers to the scene when he overheard the man attack her. It was too late. Wanda didn’t make it, but at least there were eyewitnesses who could tell the police who’d done it. The murderer was a thin, 5’9” Hispanic man with curly, ear-length hair. He was wearing a flannel jacket. Or was it a white button up? Tomayto, tomahto!

After a 45-minute manhunt, they arrested Carlos DeLuna. Carlos claimed he was innocent. He’d seen another man commit the crime – a man who was also named Carlos. Carlos Hernandez. But Carlos DeLuna was full of shit. Right?

Then Brandi keeps the bummers coming with another family annihilator. On a weekend in July of 2003, Joanie Harper, her children Marques, Lyndsey, baby Marshall and mother Earnestine Harper were all murdered in their home. The killer made a lame attempt at staging a break-in, but because they’d seen Dateline, investigators immediately turned their suspicion on Joanie’s husband, Vincent Brothers. But Vincent had been out of town during the murders, and he had the receipts to prove it.

And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases.

In this episode, Kristin pulled from:
“The Phantom” documentary
“The Wrong Carlos: Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution,” by James S. LIebman and the Columbia DeLuna Project
“The wrong Carlos: How Texas sent an innocent man to his death,” by Ed Pilkington for The Guardian
“Carlos DeLuna” entry on Wikipedia
“Yes, America, we have executed an innocent man,” by Andrew Cohen for The Atlantic

In this episode, Brandi pulled from:
“The Harper Family” episode Family Massacre
“The Mystery of the Lost Weekend” episode Dateline
“'That’s A Lot Of Hate’: Dead Insects Lead Detectives To Man Who Killed 5 Family Members” by Joe Dziemianowicz, oxygen.com
“DEFINING CASES: Bugs and sex: Vincent Brothers’ 2007 multiple-murder conviction came down to insect parts and his smugness on the stand” by Jessica Logan, The Bakersfield Californian
“Brothers attorneys blame woman for murders” by Jessica Logan, The Bakersfield Californian
“Vincent E. Brothers” murderpedia.org
“Vincent Brothers” wikipedia.org
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